You get to see the top and bottom of the mountain together. If you endure the journey, you’ll just sorta make eye contact and raise your eyebrows as if to say, "Want to go again?" And then you're halfway up the mountain for another adventure before you have too much time to question it, with an enormously heavy rucksack on your back, very glad to have someone by your side in case of avalanches or coyotes. What starts out being about love winds up being about survival. That’s romance.

If you’re planning to make out with someone, don’t wear red lipstick because it will rub off when things get passionate and might dye the space around your lips and even get on your roommate’s off-white couch which you’ll have to awkwardly confess when she gets home.

Leonard Cohen has always seemed like an old man, even in 1967. As I write this his is still alive, handsome, and as old as he has ever been. Which is why it’s unexpected that he writes such sexy lyrics: Take this longing from my tongue / all the lonely things my hands have done / Let me see your beauty broken down / like you would do for one you love.

Making a list of things you should do is almost as satisfying as actually doing those things. Your clothes will still be dirty and your fridge will be empty, but you’ll feel pretty good about yourself and have time leftover to day drink.

If you go on a date with a musician, try not to think about the possibility of becoming the subject of one of his songs. If you go on a date with a photographer, try not to think about all the beautiful moments she could capture. Try not to date a writer, period. They're too dramatic.

I met Stevie Nicks in the Spring of 1979, nearly three years to the date after Fleetwood Mac recorded Rumours at The Record Plant in Sausalito. I saw her sitting alone at the bar in the lounge of the Senator Hotel on Douglas Street, and since we were the only two people in the bar at that late hour, it seemed uncreepy and appropriate to join her.

I bought her a bourbon on the rocks. Mine, neat.

We didn’t talk about music or feminism or time travel. We talked about men. Of course we did!

She asked me, “Why do men want us to be so many things at once? Why do we want to change for them? Why do they look ahead but never behind? Why do we let them in, so completely?”

I replied sadly, “I have no idea.”

I asked her, “What was it like to be with Lindsay Buckingham? Pretty intense, I imagine.”

And she asked me, “What was it like to be with Y? Frustrating as hell?”

We ordered another bottle of wine, laughed a lot, and then I told her I had to go to bed.

She hugged me goodbye and looked me square in the eyes. Her hands were on my shoulders and her bottom lip tightened slightly. She said:

“Take lovers who will teach you something about yourself. Leave the ones who aren’t curious enough to learn.”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “Stevie, that’s easier said than done.”

If women (supposedly) cry more than men and men (supposedly) masturbate more often than women, maybe it’s because everyone needs a liquid release to feel balanced. Maybe serial killers do neither very often which is why they make bad choices.